Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, The, July-August, 2009 by David Masello
When you are far away like this, I replace my time with yours, the one you are occupying. You arise when I do not, take meals before I have an appetite, love, perhaps, someone who is not me. You have led an accelerated life, yet your flight tonight follows the horizon. As you speed westward, you slow. It will be dark when you land. We will both tire as the moon rises. We will sleep together.
Morning, the sun will heat us to the same temperature.
If it could be written in words, all of it - the clearing of the woods down the gorge wouldn't provide enough paper - but there are so many things worth writing:
The woven nest whose tendrils snake the rafters that fat-bottomed bee she bores the beams and rails
Sun and shadow mutate from mid-day dapples to six o'clock streaks and stripes Regularly, the blue-jays terrorize the robins, "Cheer, cheer!" A cardinal, to spite its weaker song fans the braver fire of its plumage against which the robin's pale orange blush is shamed.
Will there be a roast tonight? Will those broken cords be put to use - cut loose into a crackling moonlight sonata while we are still able to hear it and while the woods around are still audience?
Beech twigs at daybreak clears the palate - coffee pulls the shades open Spatters of separating forms evolve in God's country the oddly mittened sassafras, orange & ribboned mushrooms - the companions of coal. Animated wood smoke tests memory's rafters - recalls California or Maine? Suddenly, I am ten, with Betty on a stone beach.
Or that visit with Ben Franklin which yielded little, But called to mind: "If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing." I have done so little of either lately, I reflect - I've missed you, my friend, and it's my fault, really.
What becomes of the world emptied of the wild and woolly? The incorrigible flirt of birds - their inexhaustible metallic twitters; What song accompanied Adam's expulsion from that first forest? The retreating and silenced hemlocks, their crushed needles evoke poisons and potions. The dimming of the lanterns, the wetting of the coals... What soft smell will be registered by our human exit?
Rudeness, it's not just directed at ladies anymore. It happens to us little guys, too.
Returning from Key West, in Miami SubSpace Station and Airport, Mr. Ireland and I decided a coffee was needed. I spied a Starbucks and scooted over to join the line. Mr. Ireland tells me what he wants and turns to go sit down.
As I am standing there, tall-white-haired-tweed-coat-corduroy-patches-with-glasses authoritatively takes a haughty stance in FRONT of me, joining the line ahead of me, and making no eye contact with me.
I said, "Excuse me, sir."
No response, no turning, no blinking.
I said, "Excuse me, sir."
No response, no turning, no blinking.
I pick up my carry-on bag, squeeze into the spare inches between him and the person who was in front of me before he came along.
I take my own authoritative, slightly shaking stance facing him, back to the line.
He continues to look up at the menu board, looks down at his watch, yawns, and then walks away from the Starbucks and me, heading off as if to find a faster coffeeplace somewhere else.
Seconds later, he reappears around the corner, money in hand, sees me in line, looks at his watch and goes to sit in a chair at one of the gates, reading a newspaper.
I wanted justice.
But really what peeved me is that he never even acknowledged my award-winning performance as a waiting-in-line-person done wrong.
Is society really growing increasingly selfish and rude, or is it just a coincidence that more and more of these types of things seem to happen everyday?
Immense globe heedless curve catches the eye as it rests on the backs of sleeping cats a ball borne by the swimming circus seal clouds a pandering iguanadon drops its spin with squeals now the screen of a gypsy’s spangled curtain perfumed with smoke the migration of every lost tribe fixed to follow the wild globe unbreak the broken.
